vscode-search-tree
🔎 (Draft!) VSCode extension to show the search results in a tree view
The work on this extension is on-pause for now since VSCode team has put the #20224 issue into their "Aug-2022 iteration" #157454 to "Explore showing search results as a tree view". If this will be done in a VSCode core it would be ideal solution and this extension won't be needed.
Issue
Currently, the search results in VSCode cannot be grouped in a Tree View structure. See microsoft/vscode#20224.
Let me quote some folks:
Suggestion
Add a possibility to show search results in a tree view, for faster and less overwhelming information lookup.
Current state of the plugin
The code is super-raw, not optimized and not tested. Basically it is not ready to be published as of now.
However, here is what was done currently
- Custom "Search Tree" view container in a side-bar
- Custom command via
Cmd+Shift+P: "Search Tree: Search" - Custom Input dialog for the search query
- Custom hotkey:
Ctrl+Shift+F - Custom search engine: via fast-find-in-files package
- Tree view provider was used
- Custom numbers (of search results)
- "Native" file icons
- Open the file line in the code browser
- Auto-scroll to and auto-highlight the found text
| Search results as a List | Search results as a Tree |
|---|---|
 |
 |
Implementation issues
It is not clear (not possible, or at least not documented) how to do the following:
- Attach input field to the TreeView
- Attach a custom view to the Search view container
- Re-use the VSCode Search API
ToDo
- Make the Search Tree to be a part of Search view container
- Auto-focus on the Search Tree view when pressing
Ctrl+Shift+F - In-place (non-popup) input field
- Collapse/Expand all
- Light/Dark mode icons
- Search in specific folders (via regexp)
- Search in specific files (via regexp)
- Optimize search engine for large amount of files
Developing
Install dependencies
npm install
Run the extension in the development mode in VSCode
"Run and Debug" → "Run Extension"